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Show 558 INTERSTATE ADJUDICATIONS the Imperial Valley but also a dam and reservoir at or near Boulder Canyon.13 The prospect that the United States would undertake to build as a national project the necessary works to control floods and store river waters for irrigation was apparently a welcome one for the basin States. But it brought to life strong fears in the northern basin States that additional waters made available by the storage and canal proj- ects might be gobbled up in perpetuity by faster growing lower basin areas, particularly California, before the upper States could appropri- ate what they believed to be their fair share. These fears were not with- out foundation, since the law of prior appropriation prevailed in most of the Western States.14 Under that law the one who first appro- priates water and puts it to beneficial use thereby acquires a vested right to continue to divert and use that quantity of water against all claimants junior to him in point of time.15 "First in time, first in right" is the shorthand expression of this legal principle. In 1922, only four months after the Fall-Davis Report, this Court in Wyoming v. Colo- rado, 259 U.S. 419, held that the doctrine of prior appropriation could be given interstate effect.16 This decision intensified fears of Upper Basin States that they would not get their fair share of Colorado River water.17 In view of California's phenomenal growth, the Upper Basin States had particular reason to fear that California, by appropriat- ing and using Colorado River water before the upper States, would, under the interstate application of the prior appropriation doctrine, be "first in time" and therefore "first in right." Nor were such fears limited to the northernmost States. Nevada, Utah, and especially Ari- zona were all apprehensive that California's rapid declaration of ap- propriative claims would deprive them of their just share of basin water available after construction of the proposed United States project. It seemed for a time that these fears would keep the States from agree- ing on any kind of division of the river waters. Hoping to prevent "conflicts" and "expensive litigation" which would hold up or prevent the tremendous benefits expected from extensive federal development of the river,18 the basin States requested and Congress passed an Act on August 19, 1921, giving the States consent to negotiate and enter into a compact for the "equitable division and apportionment ... of the water supply of the Colorado River." 19 M Id., at 21. " This law prevails exclusively in all the basin States except California. See I Weil, Water Rights in the Western States § 66 (3d ed., 1911) ; Hutchins, Selected Problems in the Law of Water Rights in the West 30-31 (1942) (U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Misc. Pub. No. 418). Even in California it is important. See 51 Cal. Jur. 2d Waters §§ 257-264 (1959). MHmderlider v. La Plata Rive'r & Cherry Creek Ditch Co., 304 U.S. 92, 98 (1938) ; Arizona v. California, 283 U.S. 423, 459 (1931). 18 The doctrine continues to be applied interstate. E.g., Nebraska v. Wyoming, 325 U.S. 589,617-618 (1945). 17 "Delph E. Carpenter, Colorado River Commissioner for the State of Colorado, sum- marized the situation produced by that decision as follows : " 'The upper state has but one alternative, that of using every means to retard de- velopment in the lower state until the uses within the upper state have reached their maximum. The states may avoid the unfortunate situation by determining their respec- tive rights by interstate compact before further development in either state, thus permitting freedom of development in the lower state without injury to future growth in the upper.' "The final negotiation of the compact took place in the atmosphere produced by that decision." H.R. Doc. No. 717, 80th Cong., 2d Sess. 22 (1948). 18 H.R. Rep. No. 191, 67th Cong., 1st Sess. (1921). 1»42Stat. 171 (1921). |